A federal judge in New York dealt a significant blow to the Trump administration on Thursday, ruling that its cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants was unconstitutional. The decision permanently blocks the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the National Endowment for the Humanities from terminating the funding, which had been awarded to scholars, writers, research groups, and other organizations.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon sided with plaintiffs including The Authors Guild, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association, who had sued after their grants were cut. McMahon found that the administration violated the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantees, and that DOGE lacked the legal authority to cancel the grants. She also criticized the agency's use of artificial intelligence to identify and target grant projects for elimination.
The ruling stems from the administration's April 2025 cancellation of more than 1,400 grants, which had been approved by Congress. Government lawyers argued the cuts were lawful efforts to implement President Trump's executive orders, eliminate programs associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and reduce discretionary spending. But McMahon rejected that reasoning, calling the cancellations "a textbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination."
The White House and Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and it remains unclear whether they will appeal. The judge's order permanently bars the administration from terminating the grants, writing that "the public has a strong interest in ensuring that federal officials act within the bounds set by Congress and the Constitution." This case adds to a growing list of legal challenges over executive power, including a recent dispute over Trump's firing of a mine safety commissioner.
McMahon scrutinized how officials used ChatGPT to classify grant projects as DEI-related and target them for cuts. In one example, the AI platform labeled an anthology titled "In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union" as DEI. The judge dismissed the government's defense that any viewpoint classification was ChatGPT's doing, not the government's. "ChatGPT was the Government's chosen instrument," she wrote, and its use "neither excuses presumptively unconstitutional conduct nor gives the Government carte blanche to engage in it."
The grant cancellations followed Trump's February 2025 executive order implementing DOGE's "cost efficiency initiative" and another order titled "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing." Michael McDonald, then acting chairman of the NEH, sent letters to grant recipients in April 2025 informing them that their grants were terminated to "repurpose funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda." Many of the canceled grants had been awarded during the Biden administration, with only about 40 Biden-era grants spared.
Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, hailed the ruling in a joint statement, calling it "an important achievement in our effort to restore the NEH's ability to fulfill the vital mission with which Congress charged it." Yinka Ezekiel Onayemi, an attorney for the Authors Guild, described the cancellations as "a direct assault on constitutional free speech and equal protection." He added that the decision "reaffirms that Congress's 60 year old commitment to the humanities cannot be dismantled by an overreaching executive."
McMahon had previously issued a temporary block on the grant cancellations, noting that "defendants terminated the grants based on the recipients' perceived viewpoint, in an effort to drive such views out of the marketplace of ideas." In her final ruling, she emphasized that while a new administration may pursue lawful funding priorities, "it has no license to suppress disfavored ideas." The decision marks a sharp rebuke of the administration's approach, which critics say mirrors broader efforts to reshape federal priorities through executive action. The ruling also comes amid ongoing debates over the role of agencies like DOGE, which have been central to Trump's push to streamline government—a push that has sometimes sparked legal battles, such as the recent fight over the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
